


Five times Liam or Theo accidentally outed themselves, and one time they didn’t

by dorky (dorcas_gustine)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 11:25:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13546353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorcas_gustine/pseuds/dorky
Summary: Liam and Theo stumbling along the path of falling in love.





	1. 1 - Liam

**Author's Note:**

> So here's me dipping my feet into the ridiculousness that is Teen Wolf. I wrote this down in a day or so to see if I could get their voices down before I tackled longer stuff.
> 
> English isn't my first language and this isn't beta'ed, so please let me know if you find anything that should be fixed. For my part, I'm sure to find horrible grammar mistakes as soon as I've published this thing and be sure that I'll spend the next few days re-reading it and fixing things here and there.

“Okay, hold on for a sec-”

“No, wait! Don’t let go-”

“I just got to-”

Liam let the feet of the man he was carrying slip so they’d rest against his bent knees. On the other side of the unconscious man, Theo grunted a strangled curse and stumbled back as most of the weight came to bear down on him.

In his half crouched, half bent over position, Liam twisted his head to look up and waved his left arm around so he could make a grab for the rope dangling just out of range.

He gritted his teeth and shot a glance at Theo, who was struggling to keep a hold of the man under his armpits. The head of the unconscious man lolled against his neck, almost a tender tableau to the distracted glance.

“Hold on,” Liam told him.

“What?!”

In a balancing feat that would have made even the most talented acrobats sweat if Liam said so himself, he let the unconscious man’s feet slip further and bent his own right leg so they’d get trapped in the loop of the P he created by resting his right foot against his left knee.

“You okay?” he looked up at Theo.

“Sure!” Theo wheezed, his eyes bulging out as even more weight fell onto him. “Remind me again why you’re not the one on this end? You’re the one with actual supernatural strength, I’m just a tribute.”

Now that he had a couple more inches of reach he managed to grab the rope. “Hah!” He almost lost his balance but managed not to let the guy fall at the last moment. “Because you didn’t know where to go?”

“Right,” Theo looked up at the rope coiled around Liam’s hand. “Now what?”

“Push him towards me.”

They spent a good thirty minutes - ten of which were wasted because Theo couldn’t manage to stop sniggering long enough to help Liam when he got trapped between the unconscious behemoth of a man and the wall - to maneuver the knocked out hunter upright so they could tie the rope under his armpits as a sort of makeshift harness. They climbed the metals rungs to emerge from the manhole at the edge of the school parking lot - away from the cameras, Liam had made sure - and then hauled the man up by the rope.

Theo grabbed the man’s ankle and tugged until all of him was finally lying on the ground, while Liam put the manhole cover back.

They lay down for a couple of minutes, catching their breath as they leaned back against the unconscious hunter, using him as a pillow. Liam frowned down at the man’s face, its features lax, but still somehow sporting a frown. He was almost 100% sure that this was the giant he’d fought at Eichen House back when they’d gone with Scott to free Lydia. Either that, or that guy had a twin as scary and as tough to bring down as him.

Theo’s foot nudging his ankle broke him out of his reverie. He stood up and brushed his pants to try and get rid of the dirt, the mud, the blood and who knows what else they’d gathered in the tunnels. He didn’t have much luck, though, and now his hands were dirty too. With a grimace, he wiped them on his considerably less gross t-shirt.

He offered a hand to Theo and then tugged with perhaps too much force, since he stumbled upright and then right into Liam. Theo gave him an unimpressed look and, while he let go of his hand and took a half step back, he remained standing close in Liam’s personal space. So close he could feel the warmth of his skin.

“So, now what?” Theo asked, staring down at the unconscious hunter.

Liam shrugged, bumping their shoulders together. “We put him with the others.”

He heard Theo heartbeat spike for a second and he felt his body go rigid. Theo slowly turned to look at him. “There are others?!” he hissed.

Liam turned and pointed at Stiles’ Jeep, parked about fifty yards or so away. “Three of them,” he said. “But the other two were, you know, normal human size, so I managed on my own.”

He watched as Theo narrowed his eyes, focusing nowhere in particular, and tilted his head to the side. He was checking their heartbeats, but Liam had been doing that since they got out of the tunnels while carrying André the Giant and he was pretty sure they were still unconscious. He had hit them quite hard, after all. Too hard, some might say, but they’d had guns and they’d pointed them at Liam with the intent to kill, they were lucky he hadn’t slashed them to ribbons.

Seemingly satisfied with their continued state of senselessness, Theo focussed back on Liam. He smirked. “So you called me at two in the morning to literally get rid of bodies.”

“They’re not dead, they’re just very… knocked out.”

“Right. You owe me.”

“I’ll buy you breakfast.”

“I meant money.”

Liam rolled his eyes and thumped Theo’s chest with the back of his hand. “Come on, Raeken,” he nodded at the man still lying on the ground. “The faster we get this done, the faster you can have those pancakes.”

“I think I slipped a disc back there moving André the Giant, you’re buying me lunch at the very least.”

It took another thirty minutes to get André to the car and to secure him with duct tape next to the others. Liam had to slam the door shut a total of five times before it actually cooperated and remained shut, because this was still Stiles’ Jeep. Theo watched on, silently amused, while leaning against the passenger door, arms crossed over his chest.

He glared at him. “What?”

“Now what, fearless leader?”

Theo had taken to calling him that, once Scott had actually left for good to go to college and left Liam in charge. He also had other nicknames, like ‘off-brand Alpha’ and ‘Alpha cub’, all of them never failing to irritate Liam to the point of almost wolfing out in public. Weirdly enough, though, Theo always ended up doing whatever Liam asked.

He tossed the roll of duct tape to Theo, who caught it easily. “Now we drive to the edge of the preserve and we duct tape them to a tree.”

Theo gave him an unimpressed look. “That’s it. That’s your plan.”

Liam shrugged, but he was also digging into his pockets for the Jeep keys at the same time, and the move became an awkward, full body shuffle. “Well, I’m gonna call the Sheriff at some point,” he said. “I mean, it’s not like I’m going to kill them, but they did try to kill me _and_ our Pack, so I feel like I’m allowed to duct tape them to a tree if I want to.”

He probably would have missed it if he hadn’t been listening for it, when Theo drew a sharp breath as he said ‘our Pack’. It had been almost a year since the hospital and things were still quite rocky between Theo and everyone, except Alec who was new and didn’t have a history with him and Liam himself - who even though he should’ve probably known better, he’d promised himself to give Theo a second chance. It was getting better though, Liam’s plan of the Pack’s gradual exposure to Theo and vice versa working slowly, but surely.

Theo snorted and shook his head, but he was smiling fondly. Liam grinned back at him.

And then Theo said _it_.

“You’re lucky I’ve got this hopeless crush on you,” he shook his head and then pushed himself off of the side of the car and got inside.

Or at least, that’s what Liam presumed had happened: he’d heard steps, the car door open then slam close after a moment. There was a long silence as Liam stood frozen, as he stared at the empty spot Theo had been and just

The car door opened again. “Liam?”

Liam felt his mouth open, then click shut and then open again. He was gaping like a fish out of water, he knew, but he felt the comparing appropriate. Theo had a

 _What_.

“What?”

Quick steps again, but this time Theo came around the car, eyes wide and staring at him. “You okay?”

Oh yeah, he must have heard Liam’s heart beat furiously in an attempt to make its way out of his chest. Also, he didn’t know when he’d last taken a breath.

“I-” he squeaked. “You- _What_ ?!” 

Theo blinked uncomprehendingly at him. “Yeah?” It then seemed to dawn on him. “Oh, yeah. I mean- Wait. You didn’t know?”

Right. Of course. Theo’d just dropped the Tsar Bomba of all revelations, almost gave Liam a heart attack in the process, and then it was somehow Liam’s fault for not knowing that _Theo Raeken_ had a _crush_ on him?!

Who even used the word ‘crush’ past 13?!

“No, I didn’t!” He felt the growl tearing at his throat.

“Huh.”

Huh. _Huh_ . As if _Theo_ had been the one to be seriously stumped by this revelation.

“Huh?!”

Theo frowned at him, and that was the thing. He looked _genuinely_ taken aback by Liam somehow not knowing. “Ah. I thought with the chemo signals and all,” he shrugged. “I figured you knew and were just ignoring it.”

“I’m really, really bad at chemo signals,” he said, slowly. So Theo could grasp the implications in their entirety. “ _Really_ bad.”

“Ah.”

“Yep.”

The silence stretched out, unbearably so. Theo now was pretty obviously uncomfortable too after having unwittingly admitted to his ‘hopeless crush’.

“I can’t believe you used the word ‘crush’.”

“That’s your hangup?”

Liam shrugged and looked up at Theo. He appeared fine, but Liam could see the way he stood, tense, knees barely bent as if he was preparing to bolt and sprint away at the first notice. Liam took an experimental step closer. Theo stared at him and his body swayed backwards slightly, but he didn’t move otherwise. Liam took another step.

They were standing pretty close, now. As close as they had been just a few minutes earlier, when Theo was just a guy who was kind of Liam’s friend and not a guy with a crush on Liam. Theo smelled of sweat and the tunnels, of the unconscious hunter and of Liam himself, faintly. Underneath it all, Theo’s own scent, with which Liam had gotten pretty familiar over the past several months.

“What are you doing?” Theo asked, his voice tight.

“Nothing.”

A moment of silence, then, “are you _sniffing_ me?”

Liam drew back. “No?” he tried, sheepishly. When Theo leveled his gaze at him, he gave up the pretense and shrugged. “You just smell like you. Under all the tunnel smell and the André smell, I mean. You smell like usual you, nothing weird.”

He heard it, then, even before looking up and finding Theo’s slightly alarmed look: a sharp intake of breath, a stutter in the heartbeat.

Had Theo always smelled like this? Certainly not when he was evil and manipulating? Liam tried to remember, tried to go back to the zoo, the hospital - both times - but couldn’t come up with Theo’s scent then. They’d spent so much time together lately - some days he saw him even more than Mason - that he couldn’t remember Theo’s scent never being in some way mixed with his.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

“Oh.”

Theo cleared his voice and looked away. He shifted on his feet awkwardly, but he didn’t look like he wanted to run away and keep running until he was miles away from Beacon Hills anymore, so Liam counted it as progress.

“Well, I guess now that we cleared that up, we can go back to the status quo and get rid of these-”

“Dinner,” Liam blurted.

Theo frowned. Tilted his head. “What?”

“Dinner, tomorrow. Well, today, technically,” Liam said, words coming out in a rush. He felt like he was on the edge of a precipice, staring down at it, terrified and elated at the same time.

Theo sighed and shook his head. “I know I said you owe me, but you really don’t,” he stared straight into Liam’s eyes, appearing deceivingly calm on the outside, but the heart hammering in his chest couldn’t lie to Liam’s werewolf ears. He smirked, then. “I’ll always be there for you when you need to hide bodies at 2 in the morning.”

“But I want to,” Liam said. He smiled and then laughter bubbled out of him, light and clear, taking him by surprise. He reached out with his left hand, fingers barely brushing the skin of Theo’s forearm. Even without actual touching, he felt the full-body shudder Theo gave in reaction, the way his heartbeat spiked. It was exhilarating. It left him _breathless_ . “I _want_ to.”

Theo was staring at him, eyes wild and terrified, but he nodded.

Liam laughed again, happy, and leaned back against the Jeep, eyes closed.

“We should strip them,” came Theo’s voice, after a moment.

Liam shook his head and frowned up at him. “Huh?”

“The hunters,” Theo explained, pointing at the three unconscious men in the back of Stiles’ Jeep, as if there were other hunters they needed to get rid of lying around. “We should strip them before taping them to the tree.”

Liam grinned.


	2. 2 - Mason

Dinner had gone perfectly, Liam had even got a kiss by the end of the night. There had been a few other dinners - and lunches and one instance of trespassing on school grounds to use the swimming pool on a particular warm night - and many other kisses and a few more heated situations scattered throughout, but so far everything had been strictly above the belt. While Liam was all for taking it slow, being a total beginner in the field of male on male bedroom action, he felt ready to go further.

Not that he was averse to the kissing and the making out and really, he could spend  _ hours _ running his hands and mouth all over Theo’s chest and back. Literal hours. Theo had ridiculous muscles.

But Liam had done his research, he’d gotten the condoms, he’d gotten three kinds of lube  _ and _ he’d even managed to convince his parents that it was vital he stayed behind at home to study while they went away visiting his mom’s cousin for the weekend.

He’d even managed not to stress out and die outright when he’d sent the text to Theo.

‘ _ Come over. My parents are away for the weekend. _ ’

He was man enough to admit he’d panicked a bit when the only reply he got from Theo was a short ‘ _ Classy, Dunbar. _ ’ without even a single emoji to tell Liam whether he was actually really angry or just his usual sarcastic self.

Twenty minutes later, however, he’d opened the front door to find Theo on the other side, eyes wide and body thrumming with energy, hand clutching an overnight bag.

And now here they were, lying on Liam’s bed, both out of breath from the kissing, with Liam’s hands stroking down Theo’s chest and sides, lingering at the opening of his jeans, before resuming their journey upwards, across clenched abs, nipples, shoulders, neck and then downward again. 

Theo grunted and broke of the kiss. He dug his fingers into Liam’s shoulders, almost painfully. “I swear to god,” he growled. “If you don’t get my pants off I’m leaving.”

“It’s just- your chest, man,” Liam shrugged, but his fingers came to rest just shy of the tent in Theo’s pants. Yep, this was definitely happening right now. He’d read about foreplay and prep and what to do, but somehow Liam’s mind was empty and void of anything as he stared down at Theo, shirtless and breathless, hair a mess, lying in his bed.

“My chest what?”

“The muscles. It’s just- ridiculous.”

Theo snorted, but Liam saw the way he turned his head to hide a smile into his shoulder. Theo’s leg hooked at the small of his back and, together with the hands on Liam’s shoulder, it tugged him back down gently.

Theo kissed him softly. “You’re ridiculous,” he said, but it wasn’t much of a comeback.

Theo’s fingers then joined his and guided him as they popped the button open together, then they went to the zipper-

Liam’s phone on the nightstand blared with the unmistakable sound of a Skype voice call, startling them both and making Liam lose his already precarious balance. He fell forward and they crashed together painfully, hands now trapped between them and  _ oh _ -

“Fuuuck,” Theo gasped and wriggled and  _ oh _ .  _ Oh _ . “I should have worn sweatpants.”

The phone was still ringing and Liam slapped a hand in its direction until he connected and finally, blessedly, stopped.

Theo looked up at him and then shifted his hips. With a strangled sound, Liam bolted back so he was kneeling in the space between Theo’s spread legs. He darted his eyes up and did a double take when he saw the way Theo bit his lips, pinning Liam in place with the look in his eyes. 

Then, slowly, deliberately, Theo raised his arms above his head, spread his fingers and gripped the headboard so hard the wood creaked. He arched an eyebrow up at him.

Shit.

Liam fingers weren’t fast enough and fumbled at the zipper of Theo’s jeans, tugging ineffectively on it. Theo’s abs trembled against his knuckles as he huffed a quiet chuckle, not making it easy for Liam and his mounting frustration, really. With a growl, Liam gave a last, forceful tug that tore the zipper apart and then he grabbed Theo’s jeans at the ankles and pulled them off so hard he almost got smacked in the face with a foot.

He tossed the jeans aside and looked up and-

Theo wasn’t wearing any underwear.

Liam darted wide-eyed looks between Theo’s face and his…  _ nakedness _ . He felt a weird sound escape his lips. Theo nudged his hip with a knee. Liam’s eyes shot back up.

“Hey,” Theo’s voice was clear, but there was a faint blush on his cheeks and he did look somewhat embarrassed. “Quit staring at my dick and get naked, Dunbar.”

In the perfect moment of silence that followed, a loud and scandalized squawk came from Liam’s phone on the nightstand.

Several things happened right then.

Liam’s head whipped around so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. He dove sideways to grab the phone and accidentally kneed Theo in the crotch.

Theo howled and curled on himself just as Liam got a hold of the phone and found himself staring down at Mason’s shocked face.

“Shit!” He turned to look, dreading what he’d see. Indeed, Theo was still curled into a painful ball on the bed, trembling and moaning. Was he crying? God, he hoped not. “Shit!”

“Liam!” Mason yelled.

“I’ll fucking kill you, Hewitt!” Theo managed between gasps.

“Liam!” Mason yelled again, panicking.

“Shit!” Liam fumbled with the phone. “Shut up! I gotta go take care of my boyfriend!”

“ _ Boyfriend _ ?!” came Mason’s strangled voice as Liam cut off the call and tossed the phone into a drawer.

“I’m going to kill him,” Theo vowed again.

“Shit.”


	3. 3 - The Pack. The whole Pack. Yes, that means Argent, too

It figured that almost a year would pass with nothing more anomalous that a couple of omegas and the odd, stray hunter, when most of the college-aged and above - Liam refused to call the ‘adults’ as opposed to them, he was 18 now, he was an adult too! - members of the Pack were within nothing more than a day away from Beacon Hills.

But then, Scott had decided to accompany Kira to Japan and most of the others had decided to join, because when were they going to have another chance to go to Japan? And Argent was off in Europe or South Africa, so of course,  _ of course _ , everything went to hell in Beacon Hills in the matter of a couple of days.

Mason dropped a book on top of the ones already open and strewn over Mrs. McCall’s kitchen table. “The lore suggests it’s a t-” he frowned, squinted at the pages. “A tr-  _ That _ .”

Liam turned the book towards him to have a better look. The text was in an alphabet he’d never seen before, but the picture that accompanied it showed a thin, gaut  _ thing _ bent at the waist, with short legs and multi-jointed arms that ended in long fingered hands that held what looked like a bleeding heart. 

“It’s a fairy, technically.”

Nolan came over to have a look and grimaced. “I thought fairies had, like, butterfly wings and tiny dresses?”

“Disney has given us all unrealistic expectations,” Theo said, leaning against the sink and slowly sipping his coffee from a mug that proclaimed him ‘The Bestest Mom’ in a childish scrawl.

Liam looked up at Mason. “So, how do we catch it?” 

Corey came over with a armful of sheets of paper in his arms. He handed half the pile to Mason while he went through his. A couple of sheets fell from his hand and floated to the ground. Liam had watched as the two of them pulled an allnighter, going through books written in arcane languages and translating them to the best of their abilities, all the while feeling useless with just his knowledge of high school Spanish and cursing Monroe for steering him away from taking Latin. 

Mason thumbed through his translated notes, until he gave a cry of triumph and produced two sheets. “Here!” 

Alec reached for one. “Nocturnal, eat hearts,” he read out loud. “Sounds like our guy. Does it say how to trap it or get rid of it?”

“Mountain ash is always a good idea, I guess,” Mason shrugged. “Otherwise, from what I understand, I think the only way to get rid of it is tearing its heart out.”

“Great,” Theo sighed and, coffee finished, set to wash and rinse the mug. 

“The problem is that finding the t- tr-  _ it _ seems to be really hard,” Corey said. “Like most fairies, it seems it likes teleporting.”

Liam sighed. “ _ Great _ .”

There was a clink as Theo set the now clean mug down. “It has a peculiar smell, though,” he said. “It’s very strong, I’m sure I could find it again.”

Theo was the only one of them to have seen the bodies. The Sheriff had called and said they’d needed someone to make sure there was something supernatural afoot, and Theo hadn’t let Liam go. Liam had felt glad and then, right afterwards, guilty for feeling glad. When he’d asked him about them, afterwards, Theo hadn’t said much.

Alec looked at the book on the table then at the notes in Corey’s hands. He gave a forlorn sigh. “This was way better when I thought I was the only weird thing around.”

“Why children?” Liam asked. So far the two victims - that they knew of - had been children. The Sheriff had come to them for help a couple of days ago and when Liam had met him for a debriefing that afternoon he’d looked like he hadn’t slept since.

“It seems this- creature likes to eat ‘pure’ people.”

Liam frowned. “Pure? As in… good?”

“As in virgin,” Corey said. “Hence, children.”

Liam nodded. “Okay, so we have a way to find it thanks to Theo. Is there a way to bait it or something?”

Mason shrugged. “With a virgin?” he said, haltingly. 

Everyone in the room turned to stare at Nolan, who was still studying the illustration for the whatever this thing was. When he noticed the hush in the room he raised his eyes and looked around the room.

“Oh!” He blushed. “Er… Last year, there was this girl in my English class…”

Liam turned to Alec, who met his eyes as if he’d read his mind. He shook his head. “Nope,” he said, making a popping sound on the p.

“Oh,” Corey sighed. “We’re screwed. Er, no pun intended.”

Just then, Theo cleared his throat.

He stood there, against the counter, hands gripping the edge of it. He looked bored, but Liam knew better, the way his left pinky was beating an irregular rhythm, the contrast between his heart beating calmly but his shoulders getting more and more tense by the second.

Liam hadn’t known and Theo had never said, nor even slightly hinted really. Now the going slow and the hesitancy made much more sense. He had attributed them to Theo being careful with Liam, not wanting to scare him off, but it seemed now that Liam had been the one with the most experience between the two of them, after all.

Wasn’t that an absolutely terrifying thought.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mason’s eyes darting between the two of them, muttering something like ‘but… but…’ and Corey, who knew his boyfriend almost as well as Liam knew his best friend, was starting to get suspicious.

He knew he had to intervene before he and Theo were outed to everyone in the middle of coming up with a plan to use his _virgin boyfriend_ _as bait for a fairy that took people’s hearts_.

He surged forward, grabbed Mason’s wrist and dragged him sputtering to the second floor.

“Dude!” Mason exclaimed.

“You wanna keep your voice down?!” Liam hissed. “It’s not like the house is full of werewolves and chimeras with super good hearing!”

“Dude!” Mason repeated, but this time it was barely above a whisper. “The hell? I thought you were hitting that?”

He gave a frustrated growl. “I was _trying_ to, until a very nosy best friend decided to Skype-call me in the middle of it and made me literally hit that. Very hard. In the dick. With _my_ _knee_.” Mason hissed and scrunched up his face in sympathy. “Talk about cockblocking, man.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not me you should be apologizing to. I only got blue balls.”

“I’m not apologizing to Theo. Nor his dick.”

When they went back downstairs, the others had put away all the books and made place on the table for a map of Beacon Hills and its surroundings. They were all gathered around it, studying it intently, and barely even acknowledged Mason and Liam as they joined them.

“After going to the morgue with the Sheriff, I followed the smell for a bit,” Theo was saying. He pointed at a location south-west of town, where the houses thinned out and the forest started. “I got to about here before turning back,” he shot a sideways look at Liam. “It was getting late and I didn’t want to face it alone, in case I came in contact with it.”

Liam nodded. “It’s as good a place as any to start looking,” he looked out the window, at the sky turning red as the sun was setting down. “I’ll call the Sheriff.”

“We’re doing this  _ tonight _ ?” Nolan choked out. “Shouldn’t we wait until the others get back? I have a test tomorrow.”

“We’ll tell the others, but we need to get rid of this thing as soon as possible,” Liam said. “We can’t risk any more people dying.”

“We’re going to need swords for the humans,” Theo said. “A spear would be nice, too.”

“ _ Intense _ .”

Liam couldn’t recall much of that night afterwards. There had been the smell of fear, coming off all of them in waves, and the putrid scent of the whatever-its-name was. He remembered their flashlights cutting shocking white ribbons in the night.

He remembered Theo’s choked off scream and his frantic yelling, the smell of his blood, the way his breath had hitched in panic. 

He remembered letting out a furious growl, everyone screaming and yelling, and then not much else, not until he’d found himself holding a pulsating, putrid black mass in his claws as Nolan, who’d been the one with the spear, was keeping the creature pinned down.

He remembered turning, looking for Theo, and finding him being helped upright by the Sheriff on one side and Mason on the other, and how he’d heard his heartbeat, still frantic and panicked, but  _ there _ and then he’d almost choked and laughed and laughed.

The wounds on Theo’s chest had taken only a couple of hours to fade and after he had changed out of his bloody clothes and had a shower, he’d looked fine, like nothing had ever even happened. All the same, for the next few days Liam couldn’t bring himself to leave his side for more than a hour at most. Theo hadn’t seemed to mind that.

The first night he screamed himself and Liam awake and then neither of them slept much for the rest of the night. Fortunately, his parents weren’t home.

The second night, Liam woke to find Theo gasping his sister’s name and clawing at his own chest. They stayed up the whole night watching silly monster movies and drinking hot cocoa.

By the third night, Liam’s parents were back and he left his window open so Theo could climb in. 

By the time the college-aged and above members were back, a week later, the nightmares were still an almost nightly occurrence, but had diminished in intensity.

Argent was the last of them to get back and they had a Pack meeting the night he arrived straight from the airport. To be perfectly honest, Liam could have done with an extra couple days of buffer, he was exhausted after a week’s worth of nightmare watch and his sleep schedule still hadn’t recovered.

Yet, he showed up because it was a full Pack meeting and he was a good Beta and most of all,  _ Theo _ had insisted on going. He couldn’t leave his boyfriend in a room filled with people who tolerated him at best and wanted him to fuck off and die somewhere in a ditch at worst. 

Not that they didn’t have a good reason, but still.

Also, there were going to be nachos and Scott had brought back tons of Japanese snacks.

The Sheriff, Liam and Mason recounted the story, starting with the investigation - the crimes had been attributed to a unidentified killer, so far - continuing with Mason and Corey’s translating of old, arcane texts and ending up with using Theo as bait and finally Liam’s killing of the thing.

“I used a spear to pin it,” Nolan piped up, helpfully.

Lydia looked up from the entry in the book with the weird alphabet. She was frowning. “You needed someone pure of heart to be bait and you chose  _ Theo Raeken _ ?!”

A hush fell upon the room.

Liam looked at Mason, who looked at Corey, who looked at Theo, who looked back at Liam. Alec and Nolan were left to frown at each other. Sheriff Stilinski just shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Liam nudged Mason. “I thought we needed a virgin?”

Lydia scoffed. “What?  _ No _ ! Those only work with evil druidic rituals and raging unicorns. Not with-” and then she said something unintelligible. It sounded like all the consonants of the English language had a pile up and then fell out of her mouth.

“Unicorns are real now?!” Alec exclaimed.

“I can’t believe we left you guys in charge!” 

“Now, Lydia, come on,” Scott raised his hands in a pacifying gesture.

“Well, excuse us for not being fluent in a dozen dead languages,” Alec grumbled, picking at his nachos. “Even the newbie human can use a spear and I only just learned that unicorns are a thing that exists.”

Mason was going through his notes frantically as Corey hovered around him and picked any stray sheet that escaped his grasp. “I don’t understand!” he splayed his notes on the table, next to the book Lydia was still reading. He bumped one of the cans of soda, which rolled off the table and under the couch. “It said ‘pure’.”

Lydia pointed at something on the page, then she turned to Mason. “‘Of heart’,” she enunciated clearly.

“But,” Theo spoke up. “It worked.”

Argent seemed to take pity on all of them and stepped in, studying the book and then the notes over Lydia and Mason’s shoulders. Liam saw him reach out with a hand and nonchalantly grab a bundle of strawberry flavored Pocky sticks.

“Are you positive it was a,” and then he made the weird sound too. He munched thoughtfully on a pink glazed Pocky.

Lydia studied Mason notes with a thoughtful frown, thumbing quickly through them and stopping every once in a while to check back in the book. “Well, apart from that  _ crucial  _ piece of information, the rest of their notes seems to be translated correctly,” she shrugged. “It was definitely a,” and there went the weird word again.

“Maybe the lore is wrong?” Malia suggested from the couch.

Mason snatched his notes back from Lydia. “Okay, seriously. How do you two keep pronouncing that thing? It doesn’t even have any vowels!”

“Huh,” Scott said, quietly. 

Liam looked over and found him staring at Theo, curiously, head tilted to the side. Theo must have noticed the scrutiny, too, because he looked up and shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. Then, he moved imperceptibly closer to Liam.

The by now familiar feeling of elation he’d been experiencing while in Theo’s presence lately expanded in his chest like a balloon, his heart beating so fast he could feel it in his throat. Theo frowned at him worriedly, but Liam shook his head slightly and gave him a small smile. He had no words for the feeling of happiness that Theo’s instinctively trusting him brought.

“It’s definitely a,” and now even Scott was pronouncing the unpronounceable name.

“Seriously?!” 

“And the lore isn’t wrong,” he went on, interrupting Mason before he could have another meltdown. “Maybe he’s  _ literally _ pure of heart.”

Theo’s stared at Scott, shocked. His hand came up slowly to hover over his heart, fingertips barely touching the material of his t-shirt. Liam, who had seen several iterations of that same gesture in the past few nights but always in terror or violence, found it now had something of reverence in it, the way Theo’s hand shook, the way his head hung down.

The silence was shattered by Stiles’ astonished whisper. “I’m still stuck on that bit where Theo’s a virgin.”

In Liam’s defense, he was exhausted and suffering from lack of sleep. Still it took him a long moment to realize it had actually been him speaking.

“Not anymore.”


	4. 4 - Hayden

Hayden came back to visit out of the blue, one Friday in spring.

She hadn’t told Liam. In fact, she hadn’t told anybody. The only warning he got that day was going to be different was a message he’d received from Mason as he was busy with lacrosse training. 

He’d only been able to check the phone as he waited his turn for the shower, but it cryptically read ‘ _ 911 AVOID PARKING LOT 911!!!! _ ’ and Liam received no reply when he tried texting him and then calling.

There was no way he was avoiding the parking lot, though, Theo was going to pick him up so they could go ‘patrolling’ the Preserve. Mason actually made air quotes every time Liam brought it up, but honestly nowhere was it written that he couldn’t combine his duties as Alpha stand-in with the pleasure of date night with his boyfriend.

Sometimes Theo liked to full shift and go for a run in the forest and watching him run free and carefree in his wolf form made that feeling in Liam’s chest swell up until he felt like there wasn’t place for anything else.

The fact that he had to watch him strip naked was, of course, a nice bonus too.

Though he maybe should have heeded Mason’s warning, because as soon as he stepped out of the door in the direction of the parking lot, there stood Hayden. 

She looked more or less the same, though her hair was shorter and tied up in a ponytail.

“Oh,” Liam said, intelligently. “Hi?”

She frowned, but then she shook her head and grinned at him. “Hi yourself.”

“Er, I-” he darted his eyes around, desperately trying to find something that could give him an idea, anything to say. His eyes landed on a bench and his stupid mouth asked, “wanna sit down for a bit?”

Hayden herself seemed surprised at this turn of events but she shrugged and sat, then watched silently as he made his way to the vending machine to get a couple of sodas, then came back to drop the bulky lacrosse bag fall on the table before hurrying to the machine and then right back so he could grab his wallet from the bag.

He managed to get through the whole ordeal without any more incidents and came back to hand Hayden a Coke Zero, falling onto the bench next to her with his own drink tightly in hand. 

He took a sip and then found himself chugging it down when he couldn’t think of anything to say. 

He put the empty Gatorade bottle gingerly on the table. “I was er, thirsty,” he said.

“I can see that.”

“Right.”

“So.”

“So. You’re here.”

She opened the can of Coke and took a small sip before setting it aside, next to her. 

“I saw Theo waiting outside. He said ‘hello’ and asked how I was,” she said, dazed, as if that had been the most unbelievable thing she’d ever witnessed in her life. Considering the list of things she’d witnessed included ghost riders, Nazi werelions and her own death and resurrection, Theo being polite must have shaken her to the core.

Liam laughed out, taking even himself by surprise and dispelling some of the awkwardness. “And how are you?” he asked.

“He smelled like you,” she said, then she inhaled deeply. “You smell like him.”

He swallowed past the knot in his throat. “He does,” he cleared his voice. “I do.”

Hayden gave him a long, assessing look, before looking away. “I’m great,” she said, kicking her legs out.

She wasn’t lying.


	5. 5 - Liam's parents

At the sixth month mark of his and Theo’s relationship, Mason deemed it was time he told his parents about it. In theory, Liam agreed, but he felt Mason was pushing for it more for the fact that he was getting tired of being Liam’s alibi whenever he felt like spending the night out with Theo, rather than a real matter of LGBQT pride and kinship.

Liam’s parents were understanding people and Mason had reassured him time and time again that everything was going to be fine, but he couldn’t help but agonize over it.

One Friday night in late spring, he and Theo were lying on the bed of his truck, stargazing after their weekly patrol, when Liam gathered his courage and spoke.

“I’m gonna tell my parents.”

There was only the briefest moment of silence before Theo replied. A calm, “okay.”

Liam sat up and looked down at him, nonplussed. “You’re surprisingly fine with it.”

Theo shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Right. Of course. And here Liam was, worrying over nothing, apparently. “Okay. I can work with that,” he nodded to himself. “So, can you come over tomorrow? Say, around four?”

Theo looked up at him. “You want me there?” 

“Well, yeah. You’re my  _ boyfriend _ .”

Theo smiled a small, pleased smile and settled back against the jacket he was using as a pillow. “Sure,” he said softly, and Liam had to kiss him.

The next day, he had lunch at Mason’s place with Corey and then he asked them to coach him into coming out to his parents. This being Mason, he kind of expected a whole thing about queer history and culture - nothing that he hadn’t heard before, he’d been Mason’s best friend for quite a long time, after all - and advice on what to say, maybe some roleplay.

To be fair, there was a bit of roleplay. 

“So what do I do? Walk me through it.”

Mason gave him a long look. “Okay, pretend you’re your parents and I’m you,” he reached over and took Corey’s hand. “Corey is Theo, but actually better and with way less muscle mass.”

“Hey!”

“I did say you were better,” Mason pointed out. “And Theo does have ridiculous muscles.”

“He does,” Liam said.

“He does,” Corey agreed reluctantly.

“Okay, so. Are you paying attention?” Mason waited for Liam to nod, before continuing. “This is how you do it. Mom, dad. I’m bisexual and this is my boyfriend. The end.”

Liam deflated with a groan. “Maaaaaason.”

“Oh, shut up, Liam. Your parents are great, there won’t be any problem,” Mason tossed him a controller. “Now let’s play Mario Kart.”

4 p.m. was approaching quickly and Mason kicked him out thirty minutes to the hour, telling him to ‘stop procrastinating and go home so he could go ‘patrolling’ with Corey’ - and yes, he’d made the air quotes.

His parents usually were home around 5 on Saturdays, but he’d asked Theo over a little earlier so he could prepare himself, or work himself into a nervous frenzy, apparently, it wasn’t very clear right now. 

Theo was there and he was wearing nice clothes and this was happening and Liam was about to have a panic attack right in the entrance of his house without even having the good manners of taking Theo’s nice jacket and hanging it so it wouldn’t get all wrinkly

Theo’s hand closed around his arm. “Nervous?” he asked, rubbing soothing circles with his thumb.

_ No shit _ , Theo.

“What do you think?!” He took a deep breath. “I’m coming out as bi and with a complimentary boyfriend!”   
  


Theo went completely still. “Wait. What?”

“That’s the plan,” Liam said. “There was even a whole roleplay thing with Mason and Corey.”

“What?”

“Yeah, Mason was me and Corey was- it doesn’t matter.”

“I thought we were telling them you were a werewolf!”

If it had been under any other circumstances, the absolute  _ horror _ that had just dawned on Theo’s face would have been hilarious: the wide eyes, the gaping mouth, the way his voice had raised an octave and cracked.

Sadly, however, these were the worst possible circumstances in the history of the world. Liam’s parents were currently on their way and Liam’s boyfriend was a  _ complete and utter idiot _ .

“ _ What?! _ No!”

“What the hell, Liam! You could have given me some warning!”

“I thought I had!” 

He heard his parents’ car, heard their voices as they made their way to the front door. It wasn’t 5 p.m. yet, they were early. Liam felt a surge of irrational outrage at the sheer rudeness of it. Whatever had happened to being fashionably late?!

He also saw the exact moment when Theo actually contemplated jumping out of his living room window just so he could escape the situation. He saw him consider the sturdy frame, he could imagine him calculating just how much force was needed to break both it and the glass, he felt him turn his body towards it. 

“Oh my god, how are you more freaked out over coming out as my boyfriend than me telling my parents I’m a werewolf?!”

“Because you being a werew-” the rest of the words got squished behind his lips in a garbled squawk as Liam shot forward and kissed him right there, right then, just as the door opened.

“Oh!” Liam’s mother said.

“I have a boyfriend!” Liam yelled at the top of his lungs, tugging Theo around so that he stumbled to his side.

Theo, who was gaping at him as if he’d just grown a new head that spit fire and inexplicably spoke French, just stood there. Liam elbowed him in the ribs so hard that he gasped audibly.

“I’m- I’m the boyfriend,” Theo mumbled, rubbing his aching ribs.

His parents stared at them, frozen, for a long moment, the shopping they’d been doing still clutched in their arms. Then Liam’s dad snorted.

His mother, slapped him on the arm. “Don’t laugh,” she scolded him softly, but she too was having a hard time hiding her smile.

“Mom? Dad?”

“I’m sorry, Liam,” she said, turning to look at them. “Theo. We don’t want to make you feel like there isn’t a good moment to tell us anything you might want to tell us, but you could have waited until we took our jackets off.”

Liam felt his cheeks heat, but he nodded and held his hands out for their jackets.

In silence he hung them in the closet next to the door, then he reached out to grasp Theo’s hand and took a deep breath before looking up.

“Mom, dad. I’m bisexual and Theo here is my boyfriend.” Theo didn’t seem to be on the verge of a quick and messy getaway anymore, but Liam gave his hand a soft squeeze just in case.

“Are you staying for dinner, Theo?” his mom asked.

Liam felt the jolt travel down Theo’s arm to his through their linked hands. He decided to take pity on him. “Yeah, he’s staying.”

His father nodded and gave Theo a friendly pat on his shoulder. Theo stood there, rigid and shell-shocked. You could have knocked him over with a feather. 

“Good,” he said. “Off you go boys, we’ll call you down when it’s ready.”

Theo rushed upstairs so fast Liam swore there was a sonic boom. His father chuckled softly before nodding at Liam and going to the kitchen to drop the groceries.

Liam was halfway up the stairs when he heard his mother calling out to him. “And leave the door open!” 

“Moooom! I’m 18!”

“And this is still my house.”

From his room, he heard what sounded like Theo trying really hard to smother himself with a pillow.


	6. +1 - Coach

It was his last match as a high school student and Liam was still on the bench. His whole body thrummed with energy and was ready to go, but so far Coach had refused to even let him grab his lacrosse stick.

He felt the growl start deep in the back of his throat, his claw extend inside his gloves. He couldn’t lose his cool now, not when he was almost done with high school, not when he’d managed by some small miracle to remain somewhat hidden so far. Not  _ now _ .

And then the wind changed and he caught Theo’s scent, much closer than he usually let himself be at Liam’s matches. He whipped his head around and saw him under the bleachers, standing to the side and out of sight.

Liam shot a glance at Coach, but he was busy yelling at Nolan to get his ass in gear and getting his name wrong to notice him as he slipped away quietly.

“Hey,” he breathed against Theo’s lips before kissing him.

“Hey yourself.”

“I thought lacrosse was beneath you,” Liam said, poking him in the side with a gloved finger. He knew for a fact that ever since that night with the hunters and André the Giant, Theo hadn’t missed any of the Cyclones matches when they’d played at home.

Theo shrugged. “I figured, this being your last game I could make an exception.”

“So you came. For the very first time.”

“First time ever,” Theo raised his right hand, grinning.

Liam gave him a playful shove but allowed him the lie.

Theo shoved him back, before catching his wrist and tugging him towards him again. “Everything okay?” He asked. “Why aren’t you in, yet?”

Liam shrugged. “One of Coach’s unfathomable plans, I’m sure,” he sighed, then he grinned up at Theo. “But hey, I get to make out with a hot guy as a silver lining, so it’s not all bad.”

“Nice to know I’m the only slightly worse option than lacrosse,” Theo grumbled, but he kissed Liam back in between words, so he figured he wasn’t really that annoyed.

“Hmm, I think I hear Coach approaching,” Liam stood back and smoothed down the wrinkles on his jersey. “Gotta go.”

Theo leaned over. “One more kiss? For good luck?”

He scoffed. “I don’t need good luck, I’m very good.”

Theo glared at him. “Are you serious right now? Do you want a kiss or not, dumbass?”

“Right!”

Coach was definitely looking for him and he wasn’t very pleased he’d disappeared on him, judging from his tone of voice.

They broke apart just in time as Coach ducked under the bleachers and caught sight of them. “Dunbar! Are you here to play lacrosse or to do whatever you’re doing?”

“Play lacrosse, Coach!” Liam sprinted back to the field, giving Theo a small wave.

He kept listening as he went to gather his stick.

“And you?” The Coach addressed Theo. “Why aren’t you ready? Where’s your gear?”

“I- I’m not in the team,” he heard Theo reply. “I’m not even in the school.”

“Which school?”

“Neither?”

His teammates were already giving him sideways glances and frowning, so he had to hide his snort behind a cough.

“Then what are you doing here?” Couch grumbled.

“... Watching the match?”

“Good! Keep at it!”

A moment later, Coach came back and grabbed his clipboard from the bench where he’d left it. Without even looking up from it, he yelled Liam’s name. So close and with his werewolf hearing, it was a little painful but Liam couldn’t help but grin from ear to ear.

“Yes, Coach!”

“Get ready, you’re up next,” he said, then he turned to him. “Show these idiots how lacrosse is played.”

“Sure, Coach.”

When Liam scored the winning point, he searched the crowd and found Theo staring back, sandwiched between Mason and Alec.

Like a balloon, Liam’s love expanded in his chest, flooding his lungs, his heart and he laughed.

Across the field from him, Theo was smiling back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably one of the sappiest things I've ever wrote, I'm grossing myself out.
> 
> Also, I love Mason. He and Corey are disgustingly cute.


End file.
